Memories
by Mishiru
Summary: Yami's thoughts about arriving in the memories of his ancient past, his thoughts about the Millennium puzzle... His thoughts about this and that and the other thing, basically. Based on the manga.


_Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-gi-oh. I don't own Yuugi, I don't own Yami, I don't own Anzu, I don't own any other character from that show you care to name. Yu-gi-oh and all the characters and concepts within belong to Kazuki Takahashi and whoever decided to create the anime and dub it. I am merely borrowing them for purposes of non-remunerated entertainment, that is to say, I'm not being paid to write about these characters who do not belong to me. I am doing this for my own pleasure and the pleasure of whoever chooses to read this._

_Author's Notes: I don't pretend to have many readers who are clamoring for me to write more stuff... Every time I put out a fanfic or a chapter of a fanfic, I get a few reviewers who like it and DO clamor for more... But such is the slowness and irregularity of my posts that these people get bored very quickly._

_Anyways, if by any chance there ARE any of you who idly follow my snail-paced progress, then you can say this is sort of a companion to Crush, from Yami's perspective. I just got the 32nd manga and it inspired me, you see. (Hurray for Kana! All you french-reading people out there, buy Kana manga now! It's more accurate and more amusing than manga translated into American... And cheaper, too!)_

_**Memories**_

Me? A pharaoh? I saw the tablets in the museum. But it didn't sink in until just now. Now, I'm in my own memories, and for some reason I've got servants who look like Kaiba and Grandpa. And Bakura's here. I want to deny it, deny that I'm anyone important... But I can't, see? Apparently I really AM a pharaoh. Everyone's treating me like royalty. It's so weird.

You have to understand: up till now, my earliest memories have been of evening confrontations. I killed and drove men to madness. I styled myself Yuugi's bodyguard, his servant, his protector. There's no other way to see it, though, is there? I thought I was Yuugi's subordinate personality. I still consider myself to be his other self, but the evidence is stacked against me.

Besides, I'm the one who wanted to find my past, so I shouldn't be complaining. I could have just decided I was a creation of the Millennium puzzle's will, but that was too easy for me. My love of drama just wouldn't let me take the easy way out.

The reason it was so easy for me to think of myself as another Yuugi is simple. I have Yuugi's life. I consider his friends to be my friends, his family to be my family. We share the same knowledge. (I still want to know how he knew how to make explosive substances, because it sure didn't come from me!) We even have the same passion and knack for games... Yes, I know I've been coming out for games a lot more than Yuugi, but we wouldn't even have been stuck together if it weren't for his love of games and riddles. At first, every time I came out, he blacked out. It wasn't hard to imagine I was just the product of a skewed mind. And then after the Death-T, when he finally acknowledged my existence and he stopped blacking out... He remembered what I did. I knew what he did. Why shouldn't we be the same person? We have the same memories and the same knowledge.

In retrospect, what must have happened is the Millennium Puzzle used me to protect Yuugi. The puzzle was what drove me to kill and drive insane all the bullies, extortionists and corrupt individuals Yuugi got into trouble with. And then, when Yuugi finally accepted me, well, that's when I found I was protecting Yuugi because _I_ wanted to, and it wasn't some reptilian, cold compulsion anymore. Nowadays, I'm not Yuugi's protector anymore. It's strange, but it's almost as though it's the other way around. What I mean is that Yuugi took an awful lot of risks in Battle City for me, just like I did for him and Grandpa at Duelist Kingdom.

There are all these people who have told me about the puzzle's evil will. I don't buy it. It's not good, mind you. I think it's just amoral. If it were evil, it would be like Bakura's Millennium Ring, twisting the desires of its wearer into something depraved and sinister. I think Bakura himself helped with that, though. One day I'm going to free Ryou from that dangerous thing.

The Millennium Items... I'm definitely taking this opportunity of reliving my own life to figure out exactly what these things are. So far they've just been lots of trouble for nothing. I mean, look at Pegasus. He planned a takeover of Kaiba Corp and tried to hijack my puzzle in one fell swoop, just because he wanted to see his dead wife. If it hadn't been for Shadi who gave him the eye, he would never have planned Duelist Kingdom, and I bet he wouldn't have disappeared, either. (I suspect that Bakura had something to do with it. He was the one who gave me the Millennium Eye, after all, and what was it doing in his hands?) And then, of course, there's Shadi himself. He planned this awful Shadow Game, and threatened the lives of Grandpa, Jounouchi and Anzu just so he could see if I was really worthy of the Puzzle.

Ah, Anzu. God, I'd like to know what's going through her head. I thought she'd gotten over me. Jeez, I hope she's just worried about me as a friend, and that it's not as if she likes me. Dammit, I thought she and Yuugi worked that out that evening during Duelist Kingdom... There's no guarantee I'll be able to stick around after I return the puzzle to the tomb. What will she do then? If she loves Yuugi alone, I can leave without regrets. I mean, on top of every pure wish Yuugi made on the puzzle, to have friends, to see me again, and so on, would it kill this stupid puzzle to grant his one impure wish? Would it kill it to get Anzu and Yuugi together? Besides, if I trust what Bakura said, I might even end up in the afterlife. I'd like to leave this world peacefully with all my loose ends tied up.

I wonder what happens to pharaohs when they're 3000 years late?

You know, _late_ as in the _late_ Yami Mutou? Get it? Sometimes I'm so punny I scare myself.


End file.
